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Goal of equity report is ‘high expectations … all students being served,’ says TDSB’s John Malloy

It may be uncomfortable. It will be tough. And it requires “asking the hard questions” and listening to difficult truths from people who don’t usually have the floor.

But in the end, that’s the only way forward in trying to ensure that all students at the Toronto District School Board, regardless of race, socioeconomic class or special needs, have equal access to the kinds of schools and classes that will help them succeed, says director of education John Malloy.

TDSB education director John Malloy said classroom learning is connected to the complex world outside the school. “It isn’t political correctness to be sure that no one is left behind.” (Bernard Weil / Toronto Star)

That means Toronto parents need to be prepared for changes to the status quo, Malloy said Friday in an interview with the Star — though not necessarily the ones outlined in a draft report that sparked backlash late last month.

“Our data is saying that some of our students aren’t doing as well,” Malloy said.

“So the challenge is how do we provide for those students who aren’t doing as well, while still holding the bar really high for all of the other families in our community that are quite pleased with what’s going on in their schools.”

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He was speaking about the sweeping equity review underway at Canada’s largest school board, aimed at better serving all 245,000 students in its nearly 600 schools — and particularly minority groups too often overlooked.

Extensive community consultations over the past year by the TDSB’s enhancing equity task force have revealed the current system is failing many of the most marginalized students, says Malloy.

“We don’t always hear from people who need to tell us some pretty tough things, like ‘I didn’t feel my school believed in me,’ or ‘I really wanted a certain kind of program and was told I wasn’t capable enough,’ or ‘I really wanted to do something but I couldn’t figure out how to get there,’ ” he said.

But those messages, along with accounts of discrimination and low expectations, came through loud and clear and were reflected in the task force’s draft report released last month. They’ve also emerged in the 10 years that the TDSB has led boards in Ontario by regularly collecting race-based data through its student census.

The challenges of tampering with the status quo, however, were quickly apparent after the draft, written by a consultant and not approved by staff, was quietly posted online. It provoked a swift and loud outcry and an online petition over a recommendation to reorganize the way enriched learning such as specialty arts-based programs are delivered and eventually phase out specialized schools.

Irate parents and worried teenagers took it to mean that everything from the TDSB’s handful of arts-based schools to its specialized programs ranging from science to cyber arts were under threat.

The furor prompted Malloy to issue a public statement days later promising the board has no intention of closing its six stand-alone specialized schools, and will instead work on improving access to them and to other specialty programs for kids from all neighbourhoods and backgrounds.

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While it wasn’t a rollout any public relations expert would have designed, the uproar over the draft report — which Malloy stresses is only a starting point that will be followed by a final report in December — has had an upside, he said.

Suddenly, people unaware that equity had anything to do with them have started to pay attention and weigh in on the many proposals overshadowed by the fuss over specialty schools. The public can provide feedback to the report through online submissions until Nov. 20.

The final report and recommendations will be presented to the December board meeting of TDSB trustees, who will decide whether to approve it and next steps. The task force has been managed by consultant Meta Strategies and cost the board $164,000.

Other recommendations include the practice of streaming students into academic and applied courses in grades 9 and 10; increased integration of children with special needs into regular classrooms with supports; and redistributing funding so that higher-needs schools get more resources.

The draft calls for a curriculum that reflects the TDSB’s diverse student body; hiring and promotion policies aimed at creating a more diverse workforce and leadership and anti-racism training for staff. It also wants changes to such disciplinary issues as suspension and expulsion that disproportionately affect Black students and those in special education.

Some moves such as destreaming, are already underway at the board, which also recently created a new position, appointing Jeewan Chanicka as superintendent of equity, anti-racism, anti-oppression, a role that includes advising staff and overseeing training and policy.

A major thrust of the report is to create strong neighbourhood schools that students “want to go to” with enriched options available in different clusters of schools, rather than only a few select locations that a lot of kids don’t know about or can’t travel to.

And Malloy said critics who have claimed the net result will be compromising quality or lowering standards are wrong.

The goal is “high expectations, effective programs, all students being served — which means that some changes must happen,” he says.

“Lots of things are working . . . but some things aren’t.”

Some in the community complain the board is paying more attention to being politically correct than to making sure kids are better at reading, writing and math.

But Malloy said classroom learning is connected to the complex world outside the school, in a city of myriad cultures that grapples with urban density and a gulf between rich and poor.

“It isn’t political correctness to be sure that no one is left behind.”

Others say controversy is not only inevitable but necessary.

Creating a fairer system in which all kids have access to all programs that reflect who they are and where they come from can’t happen without some friction and discomfort, says Toronto equity consultant Jeff Kugler.

“I don’t think we can do some of this stuff without some people getting mad, and that’s OK,” says Kugler, a longtime teacher and principal, and former director of the Centre for Urban Schooling at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

“And if nobody gets pissed off at them, then they’re not really doing anything.”

Some people question why Malloy reacted so swiftly last month to the first criticism by backing away from the proposal on specialized schools even though it was far from being adopted.

He said it’s because the TDSB isn’t interested in “an either-or” scenario that takes away a wide range of choices for families in an effort to be more equitable. And because the discussion was hijacking the broader messages.

“Why did I step in? We have a very small number of specialty schools, we have a report filled with important discussion items that I think will make our schools better if we address them, and I saw us getting completely distracted,” he says.

To public education advocate Annie Kidder, the draft is ambitious because it addresses “all of the elephants in all the rooms.”

“There are a lot of things in here that I think people have been kind of loathe to talk about and they’ve gone ‘nope, we’re going to talk about them all,’ ” says Kidder, executive director of People for Education.

Others say while it shines a light on important issues, the true test is whether it leads to action.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” says Yolande Davidson, community co-chair of the TDSB’s Black student achievement advisory committee and board member of the Jamaican Canadian Association.

“I think it is a step forward. But it’s really more about what happens next.”

Malloy says while the TDSB still faces huge challenges that require more funding, such as making schools physically accessible, many of the changes related to equity can happen by realigning existing resources and shifting the culture.

“If we don’t create a plan that we can implement . . . we will lose public confidence quickly and we won’t be able to get to where we want to go.”

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